Eli Lilly to invest US$1 billion in India contract manufacturing

The investment plan comes days after US President Donald Trump announced a 100% tariff on imported branded or patented drugs

Eli Lilly plans to invest more than US$1 billion in India over the next few years to build new contract manufacturing capabilities in the South Asian nation, underscoring the US drugmaker’s push to bolster its global supply network.

The Indianapolis-headquartered firm will also establish a new manufacturing and quality centre in the southern city of Hyderabad, Eli Lilly said on Monday (Oct 6). This hub will provide advanced technical support and oversight for its contract manufacturing network in India, it said. Recruitment of engineers, chemists, scientists and managers for the Hyderabad hub will start soon.

Eli Lilly, which recently began selling its blockbuster diabetes drug Mounjaro in India, did not disclose specific details of US$1 billion investment, possible timelines or the therapeutic category in which it wants to do contract manufacturing.

“We are making significant investments to increase manufacturing and medicine supply capacity around the world,” Patrik Jonsson, executive vice-president and president of Lilly International, said. “This investment reaffirms our confidence in India as a hub for capability building within our global network.”

The investment plan comes days after US President Donald Trump announced a 100 per cent tariff on imported branded or patented drugs. These, however, will not have any immediate impact on Indian exports as most of the country’s shipments to the US are simple generic drugs, according to the Pharmaceuticals Export Promotion Council of India.

Trump has repeatedly threatened levies on drugs imported from overseas, and since his inauguration, several major drugmakers, including Merck and AstraZeneca, have announced billions of US dollars of investments to expand US manufacturing operations.

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Over the last five years, Eli Lilly has committed investments of more than US$55 billion globally, with an aim to build a network of factories, the company said.

“This initiative reflects Lilly’s intent to leverage India’s highly skilled talent pool to support its global manufacturing growth and deliver medicines to patients worldwide,” it said.

The company currently operates a commercial site at Gurugram near India’s capital, New Delhi, and has specialised operations at Bengaluru and Hyderabad. BLOOMBERG